“I might wake up and not know who the woman lying next to me is – that is terrifying”
This article is written by Progressive Rugby
Former Bristol, Stade Francais and Leeds Tykes prop Justin Wring is the latest player to publicly declare he’s taking legal action after being diagnosed with early onset dementia. His story is as enthralling as it is distressing, and again shines a light on head injury management in the game.
Justin with wife Charlotte Pic: Kieran McManus
It’s 15th July 2000 in the Stade de France, and the French Rugby Union Championship final between Colomiers and Stade Francais is on a knife-edge.
Stade are clinging to a 28-23 lead and under immense pressure having lost a man to the sin bin.
The tension is unbearable. The television cameras flit around the crowd, often settling on the pained face of Fabien Galthie who had missed out for Colomiers due to a knee injury.
With time up, Colomiers have a five-metre attacking scrum. Their noise from their fans who are anticipating a winning score as the front rows lock horns. Galthie can’t watch.
Then Stade tighthead Pieter de Villiers drives his opposite man up and across with such immense force that the referee awards a penalty, the championship is Stades.
But wait, hang on. In the pandemonium nobody has noticed that de Villiers has been replaced by a 28-year-old from Bristol who has come on and dismantled the Colomiers loosehead.
“I was good friends with Pieter and after the final people would come up and congratulate him for that great last scrum, and he’d say ‘no, no it was this guy!’” Justin Wring says.
There are a few die-hard Bristol or Leeds Tykes supporters who will remember Wring. Certainly, those at Otley, where he made an impact week in week out.
The former 6ft 3ins 20st doorman had returned to rugby after a few years out and managed to wangle himself a trial with Paul Hull by saying he could play front, second or back row.
Taken under Dave Egerton’s wing, Wring played his first game away at Leicester Tigers in 1998 where he faced well-known operator Graham Rowntree along with Garforth, Johnson, Corry et al.
“I held my own apart from one scrum and put Austin Healey on his backside, so it was a really amazing experience for me,” Wring says.
His efforts landed him more starts against Quins and Newcastle where he faced Jason Leonard and Irish legend Nick Popplewell, the latter of which gave him quite the workout.
“Popplewell certainly taught me a thing or two, but being a prop is all about learning. It’s just with him it was a very steep learning curve,” Wring said.
While at Bristol, Wring also caught the attention of teammate Fabrice Landreau which ultimately led to him moving to Stade to join Landreau for two seasons. This was prior to an ill-fated move to Leeds Tykes in the Premiership and his final seasons at Otley.
Sadly though, we’re not here to talk about the highs and lows of Wring’s journeyman career but rather, the crushing lows of life after that.
Wring was on top of the world after that French Championship win at the turn of the century. Just eight years later, out of the blue, he was lying in bed when he became so overwhelmed that he ran semi-naked into the street screaming and unable to breathe.
The police and ambulance were called, and his wife Charlotte had to convince medics considering sectioning him under the Mental Health Act that she’d care for him at home.
Continual bouts of panic attacks and anxiety led to deep depression until one day his wife Charlotte discovered him sat in his car on the driveway foaming at the mouth after an overdose.
Remarkably he survived, but his depression spiralled out of control again and having left a note for Charlotte it was only a last-ditch phone call with his brother-in-law that stopped him and in 2010 Wring was checked into a psychiatric ward for three months.
Since this point he has had highly violent recurring nightmares and in 2015 starting to have seizures that the NHS were unable to explain.
“Nothing added up to me and then my memory started to deteriorate,” he says.
“Over time I just seem to have deteriorated. I started to lose my words, stutter and tire easily.”
He doesn’t need to convince me. During our conversation I have noticed at times his left hand shaking uncontrollably, he often stutters and loses this thread and appears to tire easily. At one point he cries as he recalls a nurse asking him what his life was like before 2008.
In September 2021 Wring, aged 49 at the time, received a letter outlining his diagnosis of early onset dementia and probable Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE).
He says: “It was strange. On the one side, it was a relief because it explained a lot but on then other it was a major diagnosis which comes with a lot of uncertainties.”
Wring is the latest to publicly announce he is one of more than 150 former players who have started a landmark legal action against World Rugby, the Rugby Football Union and the Welsh Rugby Union for alleged negligence.
His body is a wreck. Both knees have been operated on, a thigh muscle was lacerated and his groin badly damaged. He had his neck operated on because vertebrae were pushing on his spinal cord, still suffers with stiffness in his shoulder and broke seven ribs in a collapsed maul.
However, these are all things he knew he risked from playing a hugely physical game but the damage to his brain and the uncertainty that brings is something he can’t accept.
“It upsets me when I see people saying we knew what we were getting into,” Wring, whose anxiety is such that he is now essentially confined to his house, said.
“I accept that players knew we may struggle with injuries in later life but not that I might wake up and not know who the woman lying next to me is – that is terrifying.
“I like Bill Beaumont, I really do. But when he came out recently and said that no player that is struggling would be left behind it made me laugh. Where is the help then? - Tell me that. I’ve been waiting for some for more than a decade.”